Travel Day 903 – Chennai to Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
After spending more time in Chennai then really necessary, this morning was definitely time to move on to better things…
Shore Temple in Mamallapuram, India
We actually had to move on quite early since check out turned out to be at 6am, which had been our arrival time two days ago. But we didn’t actually leave Chennai until we had another great breakfast with freshly made Appam and coconut chutney from the local place next to our hotel. After that we found ourselves one last time inside an overpriced rickshaw and then on the slowest local bus ever to finally reach Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram)…
Once we arrived, we immediately felt the difference: While Chennai had been a somewhat unfriendly and hostile place for tourists, Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) seemed to cater in any way possible to foreigners and for once I didn’t actually mind it too much. We were mainly excited about the prospect of sitting in coffee shops with wifi, being able to enjoy muesli with yoghurt and fresh fruit for breakfast in a roadside café, or having fresh seafood dinner in an open restaurant with beach view…
Five Rathas in Mahabalipuram, India
Only finding a good and cheap place to stay became at first our biggest challenge, but despite the heat we took the sweaty time to compare at least 10 hotels out of the seemingly hundreds around. As it turned out, shopping around definitely paid off since standards and prices varied greatly from simple but overpriced concrete cells to nice local places with leafy green courtyards. In the end we settled for a good compromise and then we were off to some exploration of the UNESCO World Heritage Site called Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram…
In general Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) was famous for its ancient temple architecture close by the beach and most notably were the two UNESCO Sites called Five Rathas and the Shore Temple. Legend had it that there used to be a whole series of Shore Temples, but after the sea was slowly claiming more and more of the shoreline, only one temple remained. Reports of local fishermen seeing remains of possible sister temples seemed to support this theory…
Five Rathas in Mamallapuram, India
Anyway, we decided first to see the temples that were further way and called the Five Rathas. They were a series of solid rock temples that had been covered by sand for centuries before the British excavated them and made them accessible again. For us it was quite amazing to see the temples that had been carved out of monolithic pieces of rock and it seemed almost impossible to imagine how much work it must have been to carve out all the detailed spaces and ornamentation by the bare hand…
After it was off to the smaller but beautifully situated Shore Temple while the sun was slowly setting. Simply sitting close by the temple and absorbing the atmosphere was absolutely amazing. It was already obvious that Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) was such a better place than Chennai had been and we were more than happy to beep exploring this lovely place tomorrow…
Find all Mamallapuram photos here.
Leave a Reply